Discussion on Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah

Vivek K · Post by **Vivek K** » 28 Aug 2009 22:46

*** Deleted ***

Vivek, just 4 pages back, in this thread, the admins issued a warning that any discussion of present day politics is banned and will elicit a warning, and you have happily posted this !

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 28 Aug 2009 22:58

surinder wrote:
SSridhar wrote:PS: I also agree with Rajesh that the massacres would have been unimaginable and engulfed the whole country because there was no restraining hand of the British, however feeble it had been before.
That unfortunately is sad summary, it just underscores how deft the British propaganda is: It is an instigator of violence, yet is seen as a restrainer. That is what it projected to the world also. That we would buy this propaganda is a sad reminder.

I agree with Surinder.

Please note the following -- Linlithgow who was the viceroy of India during late 30s, asked Jinaah, you want a federated solution essentially to block the power of Congress. But what will happen if British leave? Jinaah said he fully expected Congress to return to unitary model using force as soon as the British left. Linlithgow then asked -- so you want the British to stay? Jinaah was speechless!!

It was a clear quid pro quo deal between the British and the Muslim League to either perpetuate the British rule or if it had to break then to partition.

If Nehru had agreed to federate, it could have been that a united India would have lived on to be reunited later.

Yes there would have been blood shed, but if British had not played the game of double standards and helped one side (I mean in the use of violence) -- we know who would come out ahead. Muslim League fully knew this and thats why they wanted partition.

A united India would have seen bloodshed which would have forever finished the two nation theory and the idea of Pakistan. Instead we have blood shed to perpetuate the same.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 28 Aug 2009 23:00

Prem wrote:
kumarn wrote:Insisting that a federal India was the dream of both Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi, former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh has said that the country would have been "a global power" now had it not been "cut up" to form Pakistan.
I am glad he is not Foreign Minister any more. With Jinna and Jinnites india might still be fighting civil war.He cannot perceive India becoming great power with current boundaries then how can he promote Indian interests on World stage.

No give him credit, he is asking for what you really want. A united India to sort out Indian matters internally and in 47 and yes Gandhi wanted that, its on record.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 28 Aug 2009 23:05

Sanku: Since you have read the book. Is JS really saying that INC made a mistake by not accepting Jinnah's idea of a federalist state and the 14 points thereof.

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 28 Aug 2009 23:06

Prem wrote: quote="Acharya"[seaport or to the Pakistani boundary[/list].

Between 1940 to 1947 those people came together including the UP Muslim elite and others and put money together to give support for the new state. The adhoc Pakistan was created between 1945 to 1946 after the war.

These UP walas and Bihari "Islamists" are the main culprit as they ate Indian salt and spat in the very plate they ate from. Same folks created the infrastructure for inistituinalizing the hate across the boundary and unfortunately similar ideological forces are still allowed to exist in India.

The muslims in India landed up in a mess because they did not have much of a middle class left here after partition. These middle classes along with the so called elite moved to porkistan. They abandoned their Indian brethren and left them bereft of credible leadership. This resulted in the rise of muslim charlatans like "shahi imam" and his poisonous ilk.

The idea to damage to India was initiated by the desperately jealous middle classes in porkistan who grew increasingly aware of their hopless and moth eaten land of the pure.

The porki army, govt servants, isi and all the other evil doers are in vast majority these vengeful second and third generation middle classes.

In due course a middle class of sorts among the Indian muslims has taken root and the vengance from across the border is being increasingly echoed here. Kerala and Hyderabad being cases in point.
They are all "victims" after all.

When they see their low IQ co religionists in the gulf succeeding in making a decent go of their lives, the grim reality of the every day madrasa inspired squalor that is their life in porkiland spurs them to lash out at Indians whose freedoms in reality, they greatly envy.

I had earlier even come across some porki blog that wished for good relations between themselves and India so that they could legally come here, work and make money.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 28 Aug 2009 23:27

ShauryaT wrote:Sanku: Since you have read the book. Is JS really saying that INC made a mistake by not accepting Jinnah's idea of a federalist state and the 14 points thereof.

On to 300 pages now out of about 550 (excluding notes and references which I am also reading)

So far I would say partially yes JS is saying that, Jinaah did try more than once to have a via media (accpet some Muslim proposals) Nehru kept throwing it out in the most humiliating manner.

The break came in 1937 when Nehru won the UP elections WITH a informal alliance with the league and yet ditched it totally after winning a majority.

Nehru has been most intransigent -- note Jinaah himself was the first to say many of the demands of the league were wrong and he himself whittled down a lot of them before he took them to congress. He was acting as an intermediatory between the Congress and ML as a secular Muslim that he saw himself as. Nehru constantly derided him as an communalist.

It appears that Instead of going for a Socialist Republic of India (modeled on USSR) in one shot -- we could have started with a federation and worked the way up.

Note -- he is not saying that it was THE reason or the ONLY reason.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 28 Aug 2009 23:28

Sanku wrote:
Please note the following -- Linlithgow who was the viceroy of India during late 30s, asked Jinaah, you want a federated solution essentially to block the power of Congress. But what will happen if British leave? Jinaah said he fully expected Congress to return to unitary model using force as soon as the British left. Linlithgow then asked -- so you want the British to stay? Jinaah was speechless!!

It was a clear quid pro quo deal between the British and the Muslim League to either perpetuate the British rule or if it had to break then to partition.

One more thing which Jinnah wanted after Partition was dismantling of the Indian Army. He also asked the British to make sure that no Hindu Army ever rules over Muslims not only in the sub continent but also in other parts of the world when BIA went to Iraq etc. This was the long term social change he wanted to make sure that Muslims were always on top of the social order.

JwalaMukhi · Post by **JwalaMukhi** » 29 Aug 2009 05:35

Serious and honest questions. Are Indians prone to worship and spend lot of time on second rate heros/anti-heros and fake heroes/anti-heros, while conveniently forgetting the real heroes. Are the foci of the people deftly managed and guided to limit them to yield diminishing returns?
For example, the amount of literature that Indians deftly produce on Jinnah is easily five times or more than the literature produced on Netaji Subash chandra bose. Similarly the amount of literature and discussions with regards to Bhagat Singh, Raj Guru or Sukhdev is paltry.
Is this nation being groomed to focus on only a few select personalities that would produce only limited results and discuss to death about them, so the space dedicated for real heros/anti-heros is limited?
A nation that fails to commomerate, remember its heros, will soon be left with none.
But a nation that commomerates, remembers second rate personalities, will only produce fake/second rate heroes.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 29 Aug 2009 05:55

[quote="Acharyaspeechless!!

One more thing which Jinnah wanted after Partition was dismantling of the Indian Army. He also asked the British to make sure that no Hindu Army ever rules over Muslims not only in the sub continent but also in other parts of the world when BIA went to Iraq etc. This was the long term social change he wanted to make sure that Muslims were always on top of the social order.[/quote]
But JS claims Jinnah was not anti Hunood.
JS sees the pain in the eyes of Muslims and justify Sacchar but no mention of the pain endured by Non Muslims for hundreds of years . How differeent is he from Nehru when he forget this pain. Look like Nuehruvian hatchetmen in BJP are jumping ship after Vajpaye's sanayas.

vishwakarmaa · Post by **vishwakarmaa** » 29 Aug 2009 06:09

Some interesting points from a blog about book -

Forget the fracas. There are plenty of other reasons to dislike Jaswant Singh's Jinnah, which bears a curious and completely inexplicable triple-barrelled subtitle: "India - Partition - Independence." Here are a few; you may choose from these, or read the book and choose from many more.

1. The most misleading blurb in history: On the back of the book (Rupa, Rs600 or thereabouts, very heavy), we have this blurb: "Jinnah is an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity," by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Now, granted that this was Singh's thesis, and so he had to choose a quote that buttressed his argument. But could he not find somebody who had not died in 1915, a full 32 years before Independence, and long, long before Jinnah (wilfully or reluctantly) called for a separate Muslim state? Also, did Gokhale really capitalise the "u" in "unity"? Was he, in other words, an editor at Rupa? Which brings me to my second point...

http://blogs.livemint.com/blogs/bookend ... -quot.aspx

vishwakarmaa · Post by **vishwakarmaa** » 29 Aug 2009 06:27

In my opinion, this book is written only to weaken Congress.

It doesn't change the fact that Jinnah was a racist who thought of Muslims as something different from Sub-Continental polity which led him to demand separate home for Muslims in Sub-Continent.

Jaswant Singh has tried his best to weaken Congress by being smart but he has failed to do so. He could have written a book on Balochis and Kashmiri Hindus. That would have served the regional interests better.

British used dissatisfied minority politician(Jinnah) to divide SubContinent into two parts. Blaming it on Congress doesn't make sense.

Game is same today. Replace British with "West & europe"(goras) and replace Jinnah with "kashmiri separatists".

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 29 Aug 2009 07:40

Advani to Step Down as Leader of India Opposition, NDTV Reports

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 29 Aug 2009 10:21

My theory:

Lets turn clock back to the immediate aftermath of Pokhran-II. Jassu bhai was doing Shastaanga Namaskar to "my friend Strobe" begging for forgiveness. In Strobe's book, he disapproves, white bahadir saar after all who has the right to judge SDREs, of Jassu bhai's BJP Hinduthva ideology. Plus, we all know how much Advani is reviled and regarded as a "Hindu extremist" in the west; and note Jassu bhai's attack on him. And then of course, no Indian will be accepted in the halls of western power who tells it like it is about TSP. Finally, note his dissing of BJP and comparing them to the squalid Klu Klux Klan. He is basically telling "my friend Strobe", jee Strobe, I love Pakis, I hate the BJP (Klu Klux Klan), and I have cut my ties with "Hindu extremist" Advani.

IMO, Jassu bhai's book must be viewed with the above facts in mind. Basically, he has found a face saving maneuver to be more acceptable in the west. Can we see Jassu bhai soon at Brooking's? He is of course enjoying the limelight with TSP. He will become a 'statesman' once he endorses MMS's surrender at Sharm-el-Sheikh, if he hasn't already. Thoo, what a let down. I once admired Jassu Bhai.

JwalaMukhi · Post by **JwalaMukhi** » 29 Aug 2009 15:03

It could even be a simple case of getting prolonged orgasm for some, by thinking about Jinnah. For some: one has to compose an ode (sorry should that be Qawwali) in honor of Jinnah, with full length photo of Jinnah on the cover of the book, no less, while for others it happens fleetingly when in Bakiland; while many others trust the efficacy of blue pill. Different strokes for different folks. But by banning the book, it will raise the curosity of some.

The most misleading blurb in history: On the back of the book (Rupa, Rs600 or thereabouts, very heavy), we have this blurb: "Jinnah is an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity," by Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Now, granted that this was Singh's thesis, and so he had to choose a quote that buttressed his argument. But could he not find somebody who had not died in 1915, a full 32 years before Independence, and long, long before Jinnah (wilfully or reluctantly) called for a separate Muslim state?

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 29 Aug 2009 20:36

Prem wrote: But JS claims Jinnah was not anti Hunood.
JS sees the pain in the eyes of Muslims and justify Sacchar but no mention of the pain endured by Non Muslims for hundreds of years . How differeent is he from Nehru when he forget this pain. Look like Nuehruvian hatchetmen in BJP are jumping ship after Vajpaye's sanayas.

No he does NOT claim that Jinnah was anti Hindu.

The reason for the blurb is clear, and they should read both side of the blubs -- which talks about his other role.

The first page has Young Jinaah of 1910, the friend of Sarojini Naidu the last page is Quaid e Azam.

This is a biography of the man for gods sake and his role in the partition -- obviously the right quotes will be used.

Lets stop this itch to score self goal and look into what the man is saying.

Why do some people get into such horrible paroxysm of contortion when the Jinaah name is mentioned. Heck even the Jews keep the memory of Holocaust alive and talk about the Nazis.

We are so weak that we cant talk about our pain.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 29 Aug 2009 23:18

Sanku,

Jews do it from a position of supreme strength, and German atoned for their sins against the Jews. At such a delicate time, with TSP basking in cocking a snook at India post Mumbai, I think it is totally out of color for someone with supposedly 'nationalist' credentials, to give comfort to Pakis. No, I see a personal agenda on his part to resurrect himself; especially with BJP stock so low. From a man of his stature, how about a book detailing the horros TSP has perpetrated on India past 60+ yerars; maybe once TSP is brought to justice, if at all, its time to give his opinion on what a 'great man' Jinnah was.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 29 Aug 2009 23:22

CRamS wrote: From a man of his stature, how about a book detailing the horros TSP has perpetrated on India past 60+ yerars; maybe once TSP is brought to justice, if at all, its time to give his opinion on what a 'great man' Jinnah was.

Uh, if you read the book you will see his opinion on what a great man Jinaah was.

Further I do not agree that he is beholden to attack Pakistan for 60 years of his existence and that is the only way to attack Pakistan.

There is also the concept of pouring sugar water in the roots of the weeds.

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 29 Aug 2009 23:53

Dear jingoes,

I have not read all your posts.But I cannot understand the fuss over JS.The only possible justification of JS can be that he was a feudal rajput and he lost his privileges.Hindus/Sikhs lost land in Bengal and Punjab.It was inevitable in a way that savarnas/upper castes would lose land in many indian states.Tamil Brahmins lost agricultural land in post-independence india.Many welcomed this change as necessary for a new india.

Let us not forget that Congress had all sorts of people in its wings-romantics,hot headed 'socialists',conservatives,realists.Most had no concrete plans for a new india.The upper castes wanted the goras out but what next?

Every one 'wanted' change but at different pace.The Brahmins of UP were relatively backward because of historical reasons.Bengal was most advanced,followed by Bombay.Madras and Punjab posed peculiar problems for Indian/Hindu nationalism.

The Gangetic plains,Rajputana,Haryana,Deccan,West Bengal were solidly Hindu.Here the upper caste Hindus,particularly the Brahmanas could fashion(or ruin) the India of their dreams.The intelligentsia,the ruling classes and peasantry belonged to the same religion.West Punjab and East Bengal were muslim majority.

It became clear that Mohammedans had no interest in an united india.Sardar Patel(a pothidar-pesant from the pragmatic state of Gujarat) and Nehru a combination of a dreamer and intellectual realised that reffashioning and strengthening India cannot be done within the ambit of an united india.East Bengal and West Punjab had to be sacrificed.According to Vamanullah,Pakistan can be located only in the rear end of a house.In an united India,pakistan in kitchen,bedroom and puja room would have been disaster.

Let us not forget that Congress had reduced muslims to deprivation.They were an useful voting block for the strongest nationalist party.
The Muslims found their voice only after 1992.

It was inevitable as the peasant castes found their voice,the muslim vote would become important in poll calculations.

The challenge before the indian polity is to keep non-dharmic forces at the margins.

What is JSs khujli?Rajnath is also a rajput.The evolving indian polity has to be fair to all classes of people.There is no place for chauvinism of any sort or romantic daydreaming by some feudals.

Bengal was far more important in India of the 40s and 50s.The Bengali elite of East Bengal could see no future for themselves in Pakistan.(we all know what activity goes on inside pakistan).
That is why there was no real protest in bengal.Most East Bengali elites 'accepted' the trade off.A Ritwick Ghatak or an odd naxal bari does not change the fact about demographics in Eaast Bengal.In West Bengal,the servile ohammedan class was not seen as a threat either by congress or CPM.The mohammedans were not evicted from West Bengal.Bengalis both east and west benefited from an independent india.But the old glory of Bengal was lost because of loss of land and overcrowding in West Bengal.The Bengalis chose not to drive out mohammedans.

Only a Hindu nationalist India can recover both West Punjab and East Bengal.This is something which both Bengalis and Punjabis have to accept .The thinking Jatt Sikhs know this despite some bluster from some of them.The Bengali bhadralok who have any brains have always known this.Despite the odd mistake by JLN,to blame him and Sardar for Partition and place them at par with Jinnah is unpardonable feudal kowtowing reminiscent of worst rajput subservience to Mughals.

We in the rest of India admire the Sisodias like Sangha and Pratap and not all petty chieftains.We admire Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singhji as well.There is no place for 'traitors' like JS.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 29 Aug 2009 23:56

krishnapremi wrote:Dear jingoes,

We in the rest of India admire the Sisodias like Sangha and Pratap and not all petty chieftains.We admire Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singhji as well.There is no place for 'traitors' like JS.

This is totally weird, what exactly has JS said in the book which will make him a tratior? Please quote a single line?

It is unbelievable, how can you create a whole thesis on the basis of a patently unfounded assumption.

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 30 Aug 2009 06:40

I have just bought the book!

The Introduction lambastes Islam and Jinnah.

Very sarcastic!

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 30 Aug 2009 09:07

Sanku wrote:
krishnapremi wrote:Dear jingoes,

We in the rest of India admire the Sisodias like Sangha and Pratap and not all petty chieftains.We admire Shivaji and Guru Gobind Singhji as well.There is no place for 'traitors' like JS.
This is totally weird, what exactly has JS said in the book which will make him a tratior? Please quote a single line?

It is unbelievable, how can you create a whole thesis on the basis of a patently unfounded assumption.

Thought that it was interesting enough to post in full.

' Flawed thesis on partition ’

A Surya Prakash

Although Mohammed Ali Jinnah propounded the pernicious two-nation theory and forced the partition of India on the ground that Muslims constitute a separate nation, he is not wholly to blame. Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and other Congress leaders who failed to stop Jinnah ought to take the rap. In fact, Nehru is the draftsman of India’s partition! Further, even after partition and the emergence of a secular, democratic India, those Muslims who chose to remain in India find themselves abandoned and bereft of “psychological security” and so, by implication, the secular majority must take the rap!

These are some nuggets from Mr Jaswant Singh’s book, Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence, which has resulted in his ouster from the Bharatiya Janata Party. Mr Singh’s sympathetic treatment of Jinnah, the author of that sinister theory that pitted man against man and resulted in the bloodiest exchange of human populations, not only challenges some of the fundamental beliefs of the BJP but of all Indians. Jinnah claimed that Muslims constituted a separate nation and that they cannot co-exist with Hindus. Jinnah said this a thousand times between 1940-47.

Throughout this period, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Rajagopalachari and many others tried to talk him out of it. All the initiatives taken by these individuals to avert this tragedy are also fully documented (for key excerpts of all the letters and documents exchanged during those days, see Secular Politics, Communal Agenda by Prof Makkhan Lal, one of our leading historians). Eventually, when all else failed and when members of Jinnah’s Muslim League resorted to barbaric massacre of Hindus in Muslim majority areas, Nehru, Sardar Patel and others gave in to Jinnah’s demand in the hope of stopping the slaughter of the innocents.

The partition meant untold suffering for millions. Over 15 million people were uprooted on both sides of Jinnah’s inhuman divide and over half-a-million were butchered in the senseless communal frenzy. This was the largest killing of human beings instigated by a politician in this part of the world. While the killing of Hindus went on unabated,
Mahatma Gandhi and leaders of the Congress, all of whom were sufficiently indoctrinated in the most noble traditions of secularism and peaceful co-existence by the Mahatma, took firm measures to stem the violence against Muslims on the Indian side.

These are historical facts which are well chronicled. Yet, the burden of Mr Singh’s argument is that the leaders of the Congress must take the blame for partition. Secondly, Mr Singh seems to hold the Hindu majority responsible for the secessionist tendencies among Muslims prior to partition. Finally, lo and behold, even after partition, the Hindu majority must take the blame for the maladjustment of Muslims in democratic India!

We are all now sufficiently familiar with what has become of the Islamic state that Jinnah created and the road traversed by secular, democratic and liberal India. Pakistan is an Islamic Republic which constitutionally prohibits non-Muslims from holding certain public offices. The population of the Hindus in Pakistan has crashed from 25 per cent in 1947 to 1.6 per cent in recent times. For much of the last 62 years that have gone by since partition, Pakistan has been under military dictatorship.

Contrast this with India. The Muslim population in India has risen from around 35 million in 1947 to over 150 million. We have a secular, democratic Constitution that ensures equity and equality. Indeed, we are so secular that since 2004, those who call the shots in India (and this includes the Prime Minister) are non-Hindus. Yet, if you go by Mr Singh’s logic, we get no marks at all for our humanistic approach to life and nation-building.

Shockingly, Mr Singh says, “Those Muslims who remained or were left behind in India now find themselves as almost abandoned, bereft of a sense of real kinship of not being ‘one’, in their entirety with the rest. This robs them of the essence of psychological security”. This is not all. Mr Singh fuels the demand for reservations for Muslims when he says “having once accepted this principle of reservations, circa 1909, then of partition, how can we now deny it to others, even such Muslims as have had to or chosen to live in India? Which is why some voices of Muslim protest now go to the extent of speaking of a ‘Third Partition’.”

In short, Mr Singh’s thesis is terribly flawed. He is so enamoured of Jinnah that he even describes Nehru as “one of the principal architects, in reality the draftsman of India’s partition”. He is also contemptuous of leaders like Nehru and Patel when he says he was struck by “the petty preoccupations of most ‘leaders’ of those times”. His misplaced sympathy for Jinnah and antipathy for Nehru, Patel and other Congress leaders does violence to our secular, democratic ideals even as it treats the perpetrators of religion-based hatred with much compassion and understanding. This is a dangerous argument. Every citizen who values secularism and democracy and hopes for the extension of these ideals, specially into non-secular frontiers like Pakistan, must summarily reject Mr Singh’s formulation.

Equally extraordinary is his claim (despite the thousand cuts inflicted on us by Pakistan, including 26/11) that Pakistan is now “somewhat mellowed” and “accommodative”.

Therefore, our secular, democratic enterprise amounts to nothing but the Islamic state that has crushed religious minorities and is now the epicentre of terrorism is “accommodative”.

Finally, a word about the political fallout of this book. While it must be emphasised that no leader of a party has the right to shock and awe his party colleagues and workers, there is nothing in the book to warrant Mr Singh’s summary expulsion from the BJP. Further, there is hardly any ground for banning the book because there are no references to Sardar Patel or Nehru which warrant a ban. Sadly, the expulsion and the ban in Gujarat have given life to a book that would have otherwise gathered dust in the back shelves of book stores.

If the BJP had treated this book with the contempt it deserves, Mr Singh’s Jinnah — India, Partition, Independence, would have been another ‘weighty’ tome that would have been sold by weight by the publishers from their godowns in Daryaganj after a futile wait for customers. The party has, unfortunately for itself and for our country, given currency to a flawed and muddled thesis that glorifies Muslim communalism and separatism and condemns secular, democratic India and its great leaders.

Kakkaji · Post by **Kakkaji** » 30 Aug 2009 09:18

I am not sure that this is the right thread for it, but here is Kanchan Gupta's recollection of events in the PMO during tha Kandahar hijack crisis. Posting in full. Makes for depressing reading:

After Jinnah, it’s Kandahar’s turn

Kanchan Gupta

The hijacking of Indian Airlines’ flight IC 814 from Kathmandu to Delhi is back in the news. Maudlin memories of partition, which was perhaps the second best thing that ever happened in this land of ours — the first being the rout of ghazis who tried to perpetuate Muslim rule by propping up a dissolute Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar whose writ didn’t run beyond the royal bedchamber in Lal Qila — have been displaced by bogus commentary on the hijacking of IC 814. Exalted members of the commentariat that dominates public discourse have been busy telling fanciful tales which are far removed from the truth and more fiction than fact. Ten years is a long time and sufficient to dull public memory which, in the best of times, is notoriously short. So gibberish can be easily palmed off as the truth and pompous comment as considered opinion.

Since everybody has a ‘Kandahar story’ to tell these days, I might as well tell mine too; unlike theirs, this story is not conjured out of thin air or based on what the Prime Minister or any of the key Ministers in the NDA Government told me. It’s based on notes that I kept during my stint in the Prime Minister’s Office as an aide to Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee. So, shorn of manufactured dramatic details and whispered confidences, it could prove to be utterly boring. You have been warned.

Mr Vajpayee had gone out of Delhi on an official tour; I had accompanied him along with other officers of the PMO. The hijacking of IC 814 occurred while we were returning to Delhi on Christmas eve. Curiously, the initial information about IC 814 being hijacked soon after its take-off from Tribhuvan International Airport, of which the IAF was believed to have been aware, was not communicated to the pilot of the Prime Minister’s aircraft, a derelict Air Force Boeing of 1970s vintage. As a result, we remained blissfully ignorant of the hijacking till we landed in Delhi around 7 pm, a full hour and 40 minutes since IC 814 had been commandeered by Ibrahim Athar, resident of Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshan Iqbal, resident of Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, resident of Defence Area, Karachi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, resident of Akhtar Colony, Karachi, and Shakir, resident of Sukkur City — all exotic places in what remains of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan. After disembarking from the aircraft in the VIP bay of Palam Technical Area, we were surprised to find National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra waiting at the foot of the ladder. He led Mr Vajpayee aside and gave him the news. They got into the Prime Minister’s car and it sped out of the Technical Area. Some of us followed Mr Vajpayee to Race Course Road, as was the normal routine.

At the Prime Minister’s residence, senior Ministers and Secretaries had already been summoned for an emergency meeting. Mr Mishra left for the crisis control room that had been set up at Rajiv Bhavan. In between meetings, Mr Vajpayee instructed his personal staff to cancel all celebrations planned for December 25, his birthday. The Cabinet Committee on Security met late into the night as our long vigil began. On Christmas eve, after news of the hijacking broke, there was stunned all-round silence. But by noon on December 25, orchestrated protests outside the Prime Minister’s residence began, with women beating their chests and tearing their clothes. The crowd swelled by the hour as the day progressed. Over the next week, there was a steady clamour that the Government should pay any price to bring the hostages back home, safe and sound. One evening, the Prime Minister asked his staff to let the families come in so that they could be told about the Government’s efforts to secure the hostages’ release. By then negotiations had begun and Mullah Omar had got into the act through his ‘Foreign Minister’, Muttavakil. The hijackers wanted 36 terrorists, held in various Indian jails, to be freed, $ 200 million as ransom money and the remains of some terrorists who had been killed and interred in Jammu & Kashmir. Or else they would blow up the aircraft with the hostages.

The moment it entered the premises, the crowd started screaming: “We want our relatives back. What difference does it make to us what you have to give the hijackers?” a man shouted. “We don’t care if you have to give away Kashmir,” a woman screamed and others took up the refrain, chanting: “Kashmir de do, kuchh bhi de do, hamare logon ko ghar wapas lao.” A woman sobbed, “Mera beta… hai mera beta…” and made a great show of fainting of grief. Mr Jaswant Singh, who had been asked to speak to the crowd, made bold to suggest in chaste Hindi that the Government had to keep the nation’s interest in mind, that we could not be seen to be giving in to the hijackers. That fetched him abuse and rebuke. “Bhaand me jaaye desh aur bhaand me jaaye desh ka hit. (To hell with the country and national interest),” many in the crowd shouted back. Stumped by the response, Mr Jaswant Singh beat a hasty retreat.

By December 29, the Government’s negotiators had struck a deal with the hijackers: The hostages would be set free in exchange of three dreaded Pakistani terrorists — Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Sheikh. Over the next 24 hours the Home Ministry completed the necessary paper work to release the three terrorists from various prisons. Mr Farooq Abdullah fought till the end to prevent the swap as he believed it would be a severe blow to India. At one stage, he broke down and wept bitterly. But by then there was tremendous pressure on the Government to get the hostages back. The media played a dubious role by claiming that the Government was not being sufficiently alert to the gravity of the situation and front-paging treacly stories of families in distress — grieving parents, shocked wives, wailing children.

The CCS met around 8 am on December 31 for a final run-down of the drill. Mr Jaswant Singh informed his colleagues that the IB, R&AW and MEA officials who were in Kandahar and had negotiated the deal with the Taliban apprehended last minute demands and wanted someone “senior enough to take on-the-spot decisions”. Mr Jaswant Singh said he had decided to go to Kandahar and left the meeting. Others sat around for some more time. According to the plan that had been drawn up, Mr Jaswant Singh was supposed to travel in an Aviation Research Centre aircraft, while the three terrorists would go in an Indian Airlines plane. Pakistan refused overflight permission for the ARC aircraft minutes before its scheduled take-off. There was no other alternative for Mr Jaswant Singh but to board the plane carrying the terrorists. As things turned out, the Taliban kept their word and the hostages were freed; they landed in Delhi on New Year’s eve. And thereby hangs a tale which continues to excite media needlessly.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 30 Aug 2009 09:20

[quote="chetakon the Indian side.

Shockingly, Mr Singh says, “Those Muslims who remained or were left behind in India now find themselves as almost abandoned, bereft of a sense of real kinship of not being ‘one’, in their entirety with the rest. This robs them of the essence of psychological security”. This is not all. Mr Singh fuels the demand for reservations for Muslims when he says “having once accepted this principle of reservations, circa 1909, then of partition, how can we now deny it to others, even such Muslims as have had to or chosen to live in India? Which is why some voices of Muslim protest now go to the extent of speaking of a ‘Third Partition’.”
.[/quote]

In Punjabi , they will say , lo lai lo aamb(mango). The kinship cannot happen unless the doctrine of "we are different" disappear. Its the Mullha enforced ideological loyalty from the early age , superseeding and negating the national Cohesiveness which create the psychologicla barrier. The few who has broken this barrier are happlily accepted by all Indians. Why is Singh is silent about the pain of Non muslims?

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 30 Aug 2009 09:28

Kakkaji wrote:I am not sure that this is the right thread for it, but here is Kanchan Gupta's recollection of events in the PMO during tha Kandahar hijack crisis. Posting in full. Makes for depressing reading:

After Jinnah, it’s Kandahar’s turn

Kanchan Gupta

The hijacking of Indian Airlines’ flight IC 814 from Kathmandu to Delhi is back in the news. Maudlin memories of partition, which was perhaps the second best thing that ever happened in this land of ours — the first being the rout of ghazis who tried to perpetuate Muslim rule by propping up a dissolute Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar whose writ didn’t run beyond the royal bedchamber in Lal Qila — have been displaced by bogus commentary on the hijacking of IC 814. Exalted members of the commentariat that dominates public discourse have been busy telling fanciful tales which are far removed from the truth and more fiction than fact. Ten years is a long time and sufficient to dull public memory which, in the best of times, is notoriously short. So gibberish can be easily palmed off as the truth and pompous comment as considered opinion.

Since everybody has a ‘Kandahar story’ to tell these days, I might as well tell mine too; unlike theirs, this story is not conjured out of thin air or based on what the Prime Minister or any of the key Ministers in the NDA Government told me. It’s based on notes that I kept during my stint in the Prime Minister’s Office as an aide to Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee. So, shorn of manufactured dramatic details and whispered confidences, it could prove to be utterly boring. You have been warned.

Mr Vajpayee had gone out of Delhi on an official tour; I had accompanied him along with other officers of the PMO. The hijacking of IC 814 occurred while we were returning to Delhi on Christmas eve. Curiously, the initial information about IC 814 being hijacked soon after its take-off from Tribhuvan International Airport, of which the IAF was believed to have been aware, was not communicated to the pilot of the Prime Minister’s aircraft, a derelict Air Force Boeing of 1970s vintage. As a result, we remained blissfully ignorant of the hijacking till we landed in Delhi around 7 pm, a full hour and 40 minutes since IC 814 had been commandeered by Ibrahim Athar, resident of Bahawalpur, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Gulshan Iqbal, resident of Karachi, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, resident of Defence Area, Karachi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim, resident of Akhtar Colony, Karachi, and Shakir, resident of Sukkur City — all exotic places in what remains of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan. After disembarking from the aircraft in the VIP bay of Palam Technical Area, we were surprised to find National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra waiting at the foot of the ladder. He led Mr Vajpayee aside and gave him the news. They got into the Prime Minister’s car and it sped out of the Technical Area. Some of us followed Mr Vajpayee to Race Course Road, as was the normal routine.

At the Prime Minister’s residence, senior Ministers and Secretaries had already been summoned for an emergency meeting. Mr Mishra left for the crisis control room that had been set up at Rajiv Bhavan. In between meetings, Mr Vajpayee instructed his personal staff to cancel all celebrations planned for December 25, his birthday. The Cabinet Committee on Security met late into the night as our long vigil began. On Christmas eve, after news of the hijacking broke, there was stunned all-round silence. But by noon on December 25, orchestrated protests outside the Prime Minister’s residence began, with women beating their chests and tearing their clothes. The crowd swelled by the hour as the day progressed. Over the next week, there was a steady clamour that the Government should pay any price to bring the hostages back home, safe and sound. One evening, the Prime Minister asked his staff to let the families come in so that they could be told about the Government’s efforts to secure the hostages’ release. By then negotiations had begun and Mullah Omar had got into the act through his ‘Foreign Minister’, Muttavakil. The hijackers wanted 36 terrorists, held in various Indian jails, to be freed, $ 200 million as ransom money and the remains of some terrorists who had been killed and interred in Jammu & Kashmir. Or else they would blow up the aircraft with the hostages.

The moment it entered the premises, the crowd started screaming: “We want our relatives back. What difference does it make to us what you have to give the hijackers?” a man shouted. “We don’t care if you have to give away Kashmir,” a woman screamed and others took up the refrain, chanting: “Kashmir de do, kuchh bhi de do, hamare logon ko ghar wapas lao.” A woman sobbed, “Mera beta… hai mera beta…” and made a great show of fainting of grief. Mr Jaswant Singh, who had been asked to speak to the crowd, made bold to suggest in chaste Hindi that the Government had to keep the nation’s interest in mind, that we could not be seen to be giving in to the hijackers. That fetched him abuse and rebuke. “Bhaand me jaaye desh aur bhaand me jaaye desh ka hit. (To hell with the country and national interest),” many in the crowd shouted back. Stumped by the response, Mr Jaswant Singh beat a hasty retreat.

By December 29, the Government’s negotiators had struck a deal with the hijackers: The hostages would be set free in exchange of three dreaded Pakistani terrorists — Maulana Masood Azhar, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar and Ahmed Omar Sheikh. Over the next 24 hours the Home Ministry completed the necessary paper work to release the three terrorists from various prisons. Mr Farooq Abdullah fought till the end to prevent the swap as he believed it would be a severe blow to India. At one stage, he broke down and wept bitterly. But by then there was tremendous pressure on the Government to get the hostages back. The media played a dubious role by claiming that the Government was not being sufficiently alert to the gravity of the situation and front-paging treacly stories of families in distress — grieving parents, shocked wives, wailing children.

The CCS met around 8 am on December 31 for a final run-down of the drill. Mr Jaswant Singh informed his colleagues that the IB, R&AW and MEA officials who were in Kandahar and had negotiated the deal with the Taliban apprehended last minute demands and wanted someone “senior enough to take on-the-spot decisions”. Mr Jaswant Singh said he had decided to go to Kandahar and left the meeting. Others sat around for some more time. According to the plan that had been drawn up, Mr Jaswant Singh was supposed to travel in an Aviation Research Centre aircraft, while the three terrorists would go in an Indian Airlines plane. Pakistan refused overflight permission for the ARC aircraft minutes before its scheduled take-off. There was no other alternative for Mr Jaswant Singh but to board the plane carrying the terrorists. As things turned out, the Taliban kept their word and the hostages were freed; they landed in Delhi on New Year’s eve. And thereby hangs a tale which continues to excite media needlessly.

Not specifically mentioned is the stellar role played by brinda karat and bibi burkha in chivvying and recklessly instigating the "relatives" to undermine the authority of the Indian State.

This "news" channel carried extensive and motivated coverage of the event and particularly showed up the government of the day and by extension the country in a very bad light.

Many of the "thousand cuts" is made in India itself by our own sickular DDM

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 30 Aug 2009 12:22

This is what Jaswant Singh writes on Page 5 of his book

How did Islam with ease first become Indian, then struggle to become a geographical supernumerary to it, to this great spread of what was their own 'home'. Far from being the faith of kings, emperors and the rulers of India, for a period of time, it then became the faith of the 'separator', of those that divided the land, expelling itself (notionally) from India....

and relegating such of the faith that remained within India to a life of perpetual self questioning and doubt about their true identity.....

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 30 Aug 2009 13:32

Prem wrote:
In Punjabi , they will say , lo lai lo aamb(mango). The kinship cannot happen unless the doctrine of "we are different" disappear. Its the Mullha enforced ideological loyalty from the early age , superseeding and negating the national Cohesiveness which create the psychologicla barrier. The few who has broken this barrier are happlily accepted by all Indians. Why is Singh is silent about the pain of Non muslims?

I asked people to quote from the book not from those of motivated columnists.

So all that can be blamed on JS in two lines taken out of context?

That he says Muslims suffered but in those two lines does not say Hindus suffered?

Kudos to the DDM.

---------------

Yes Nehru is as guilty of the partition. His guilt has been in various actions since 1928

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 30 Aug 2009 13:40

I don't know if JLN is guilty of partition. He could be if archives are to be believed.

For sure I know that he is guilty for all this problem in Kashmir!

Drevin · Post by **Drevin** » 30 Aug 2009 14:46

Does Jaswant mention SVP or RSS in a derogatory manner anywhere in the book? That would clear the air regarding his being guilty/not-guilty.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 30 Aug 2009 14:48

Drevin wrote:Does Jaswant mention SVP or RSS in a derogatory manner anywhere in the book? That would clear the air regarding his being guilty/not-guilty.

RSS comes in for praise (and Hindu Mahasabha and its people also come in for positive discussion) SVP I dont think so either.

I couldn't find a mention so far.

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 30 Aug 2009 18:15

JS's sentences are long and with too many thoughts in that sentence.

Hence, it has to be read slowly and carefully!

One wonders when one will finally finish reading the book!

However, with a whole lot of references and footnotes!

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 31 Aug 2009 13:29

Where are those who have not bought the book (Rs 695) and so eloquent?

BRF is an unique forum where much knowledge is displayed in such thin air and then it takes over as so sagacious and pious!

It is time to out your money where your mouth is.

And in India,if is BIG money for a book!

AjitK · Post by **AjitK** » 01 Sep 2009 14:52

Jaswant, not-so original

posting the whole article:

The author of Jinnah: India – Partition – Independence, Jaswant Singh, and its publisher, R K Mehra, have taken pains to convince the book’s readers that it is a piece of meticulous research.

“It has taken me five years,” Singh states in his introduction, “to write, rewrite, check, cross-check, seemingly an endless process.” He also mentions a research team that assisted him in the task, highlighting the persons whose particular whose help was invaluable to him.

As for the publisher, R K Mehra of Rupa & Co., he said in an interview: “It’s a well-researched and professionally handled academic work...” Then he added, “Our editors had diligently scanned the manuscript in its entirety...”

The book may have been ‘researched’ by an assiduous team, but the book carries Singh’s name as its author. He is responsible for everything included in it. Further, by putting his name on the cover, Singh lays claim to the authorship of all the book’s contents, unless otherwise indicated — i.e. properly ascribed to someone and duly acknowledged as a quotation. Similarly, the job of any book editor or publisher worth the name is to ensure accuracy and consistency in the text, and a full acknowledgment of other people’s wherever needed.

Sad to say, that is not the case here. I have found several cases in the footnotes and endnotes where huge chunks have been copied word-for-word from some source available on the web, with absolutely no acknowledgment of the source.

(When The Indian Express contacted Mehra, he declined to comment on the lifting of text while Jaswant Singh was unavailable for comment. When contacted, IAS officer and former aide to the author, Raghvendra Singh, thanked by Singh in the acknowledgments as “relentlessly searching out new books, new sources and references,” said: “What can I say?”).

• On pages 481-2, there is a long (19 lines), erudite note on the Canadian scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith. Besides being totally irrelevant, it is a verbatim copy of a note that is available on the web at the following link: http://www.as.ua.edu/rel/aboutrelbiowcsmith.html. The site belongs to the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Alabama ; the biographical statement on Smith was authored by its Department of Religious Studies.

• On page 588, the long (34 lines), equally erudite note on Benedict Anderson and his book, Imagined Communities, is a meticulous copy of what is available on the web at the site set up by “The Nationalism Project.” Its html is: http://www.nationalismproject.org/what/anderson.htm.

• Page 623 contains a note (20 lines) on the Muddiman Committee. Singh or his research team has stolen it word for word from the “Banglapedia” on the web. The copyright for it belongs to the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Amazingly, the same note is duplicated on page 630, unnoticed by the vigilant editors at Rupa & Co.

• On page 633, the author has included a note on Ramsay Macdonald; it runs to 25 lines, and faithfully copies what the Indian National Congress has placed on the web under the heading “British Friends of India.” It can be looked up at http://www.congress.org.in/british-friends-of-india.php.

• On pages 634-5, the author has presented a long note on A K Fazlul Haq. Its 38 lines were originally written by someone for the “Story of Pakistan” project. One can find it on the web at: http://www.story of pakistan.com

Let me reiterate that none of the above carries any indication that it was not authored by Jaswant Singh. I’m confident that more searches of the kind I did, using key words or sentences, will turn up many more such examples in the endnotes and also elsewhere.

I am sure that both Singh and Mehra will describe the above as “inadvertent lapses,” and call my exercise “nitpicking.” In most countries of the world, however, the same “lapses” will be called plagiarism.

— The author is Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago, and a National Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Sep 2009 22:28

Jaswant Singhji's book must be hitting hard for Prof Emeritus and that to of the nest of India haters Uty of Chicago, to be checking the cross refs and notes. What is his take on the book and not the notes which are there for further research?

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 01 Sep 2009 22:36

ramana wrote:Jaswant Singhji's book must be hitting hard for Prof Emeritus and that to of the nest of India haters Uty of Chicago, to be checking the cross refs and notes. What is his take on the book and not the notes which are there for further research?

The notes are either cross referenced themselves to other books or have suitable accreditions. I guess only a few sentences were off wiki, but then not all that is on Wiki is original.

This was a sad attempt by the prof in question.

John Snow · Post by **John Snow** » 01 Sep 2009 22:37

Some books tatse better when purchased in raddi, to chew and digest...

RayC · Post by **RayC** » 01 Sep 2009 22:55

The book has Chapter to Chapter references and footnotes (separate) and they are very copious.

The Appx start at Page 526 to 585.

The Endnotes with references start at Page 586 and continues to 652.

Wiki also gives references.

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 03 Sep 2009 11:59

Justification for Jihad – from Jinnah to Jaswant
Saradindu Mukherji
The author teaches History at the University of Delhi, Delhi

02 Sep 2009
By a flawed logic, Jinnah, who was never jailed by the British, has become a “freedom fighter.” It is like leaving out the last fifteen years of Hitler’s life and describing him as a mere painter, or Rajiv Gandhi as only a pilot.

Not that Jaswant Singh does not provide many details of his hero’s chequered career; yet he does not draw appropriate conclusions. In exhaustive 60-page long Appendices, he omits the all important Lahore Resolution, putting it under a sub-section without providing many details, while the US-based Pakistani scholar whose approach he follows has no sub-section or Appendix entry on it in her book.

Fond of using “Quaid-e-Azam” and “Nawab Saheb” all too frequently for his icons, he avoids such terms for lesser mortals, especially if they are Hindus. In many respects, he is clear as in his “Call to Honour,” how to show partiality! Either it is sheer coincidence or deliberate. No wonder, he was probably the only Minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Cabinet who never had to hide his objectives and agenda. That’s a problem with this kind of “scholarship.”

Don’t we see in him shades of those Hindu chieftains of Rajputana who helped the Muslim rulers in their Jihad against the Hindus?

To look for the causes of Partition in the Gandhian ideals of Ram-rajya, Nehru’s refusal to accommodate the Muslim League in 1937 in the UP cabinet, or the harmless “Hindu Right” is a joke.

Only people with overriding Pan-Islamic sympathies, with an eye for a space in the anti-Hindu “secular” politics in India would do it. It was an ideology of hatred, built on a separatist, intolerant world-view that came with the invaders from Central Asia that led to Partition.

Muslim rulers, theologians, many local converts (Jinnah’s grandfather was a Hindu) and ideologues like Sirhindi, Waliullah, Titu Meer, Sir Syed Ahmad, Syed Ameer Ali, Mohammad, Iqbal and a host of others kept it alive. Jinnah’s “greatness” lay in capitalising on this rich legacy of hatred for the polytheists. The Muslim “alienation” that Jaswant Singh slyly mentions has roots in the primordial theological diktat, not contemporary Indian polity.

This writer first met and heard Jaswant Singh at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London in 1983, when the former was a post-doctoral research scholar in London University. Besides being disappointing, the talk had nothing to offer from the ideological and civilisational point of view. Hence this author was not unduly shocked when he went on to clinch the Enron deal in the short-lived 13-day Vajpayee Government or ensured a unilateral moratorium on further nuclear tests after Pokharan II.

India would have been partitioned even without Jinnah, sooner or later. The British did not invent the Divide and Rule, they merely took advantage of the divide, while often deepening it further.
It is true that the Gandhian Congress which had its “baptism by fire” in the Khilafat-Moplah achievements was pursuing a policy of Muslim appeasement, further bolstered by its rationalization of the assassination of Swami Shraddhanand by a Muslim fanatic. Their bonhomie with the “nationalist” Deobandis, who wanted the whole of India after the British exit, strengthened this toxic mindset, that acquiescence in every form of pan-Islamic aggression was politically profitable. The primary fault of both Gandhi and Nehru was in their tacit approval of this line.

In Chapter 11, “In Retrospect,” Jaswant Singh sounds phoney suggesting that it was “our sovereignty” that the British captured in 1857-58. The Mughal state was not native, and many of us refuse to see it as even remotely resembling a secular and tolerant regime. In fact, “we” Hindus and Sikhs were outsiders in the system.

Jaswant goes horribly wrong in saying that the Crown “did not really know the land, the people, their many languages - multiple shades of faith and beliefs…” He should read more about Jones, Bentinck, Gladstone and Ripon, the district gazetteers and the survey and settlement reports prepared by the British. Certainly they knew more about India than the Muslim rulers and voodoo-historians.

Singh is obsessed with the plight of Muslims throughout - their loss and future. The horrendous plight of Hindus and Sikhs is mischievously compared to that of the Muslims in India. How can he miss that these people have been almost wiped out in the areas which became Pakistan / Bangladesh? Funnily, he includes all - Indians Pakistanis, Bangladeshis - in “we”. He smothers the truth while saying that the birth of a Muslim nation had begun only 100 years ago.

He is wrong to say that Jinnah was not against Hindus or Hinduism. Jinnah always castigated Gandhi and the Congress as being nothing but Hindus. Did he not castigate the “caste Hindus, Fascist Congress”? Whom did he want to teach through the “Direct Action”? Whom did he want to decimate by ‘dividing and destroying India”? Did not Khizr Hyat Khan say that the Muslim League had identified Pakistan with Islam, the Koran and the Holy Prophet”? Did not Jinnah say that the “Hindus had a ‘subtle intention’ to undermine the Muslims?”

Jinnah wanted Pakistan and it lay in the logic of the march of Islam in India. His demand was not a “bargaining counter” as some Pakistanis suggest, and Jaswant Singh supports.

As for Jinnah’s “secularism”, his opposition to Khilafat stemmed not only from his aversion to mass politics, but also his being a Shia, while the Ottomans were Sunnis. Secondly, he embraced Asna Ashari Shia sect, having been born an Ismaili Khoja (considered an imperfect Muslim, being a mix of Hinduism and Islam) when flaunting his Islamic identity became imperative.

Next, he got away with giving his estranged Parsi wife a Muslim burial. Fourthly, in his “secular” phase - 1920s - Jinnah wanted the creation of a Muslim province in Sindh, a distinct position for Muslim majority states in Baluchistan and NWFP, and higher representation for the Muslims in the two other Muslim states of Bengal and Punjab. Gandhi, Bose or Nehru never pleaded for preserving the integrity of the Hindu majority states

Jinnah’s role in unleashing the barbaric fanatical Muslim attacks through “Direct Action”, non-interference with the pogrom in Noakhali, and abetment of the brutal assault, forced conversion and forced nikah of Hindu/Sikh women in Pakistan, and the merciless armed attack in Kashmir in late 1947, are well known. Jaswant leaves them out.

Nehru’s rejection of the Cabinet Mission Plan was one rare correct decision that he ever took. It was a plan for balkanization of India, favoured by the Muslim league and Jaswant Singh’s favourite Pakistani historian.

Yes, Jinnah and a host of his colleagues had repeatedly wanted an exchange of population: and indeed, it’s the only solution to end Muslim violence in India. There is an imperative need to revive this commendable suggestion. Jaswant does not expand this aspect.

Is it not intriguing that 61 years after a religion-based Partition in which Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, suffered irreparable losses, a prominent figure of a party primarily based on Hindu support should be looking for a pat from the Ummah?

Jaswant Singh has as much liberty to paint his latest hero in the whitest of white hues as Bam Stoker has in rehabilitating his hero, Dracula, as an apostle of peace. Jaswant Singh who dispatched coal supplies to Bangladesh in time just after 16 of our Jawans were killed by the Bangladeshis, has done it again. He has offered a priori justification for the next Jihadi attack on India.

http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisp ... spx?id=786

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 03 Sep 2009 17:54

Guys,as mentioned earlier,the last piece on JS's book.Th crucial AICC meeting on June 14-15th to pass a resolution approving the infamous "Mountbatten Plan for Partition".The AICC mt in a small room.Ram manohar Lohia wrote of this meeting that barring Puroshottamdas Tandon,himself,Gandhi and Ghaffar Khan,who opposed the resolution the others were silent.Tandon made an inpassioned spech where he said that it would be better to suffer british rule for a bit longer than to give in to partition,to huge applause.

When Gandhi asked Nehru why he had not been informed of the scheme to partition India,Nehru obfuscated and made lame excuses,in fact to all purposes he "lied".Gandhi asked him again and he mumbled that Noakhali was so far,etc. and that anyway he might not have mentioed the details about the scheme but that he had informed Gandhi.Azad kept silent ,puffing on counless cigs,and as Lohia said,kept silent for a decade plus as a minister after partition even though he might've been against it.He was savage about the Cong.pres. Kripalani,whom he said,kpt quiet throughout, had a "headache",rclined most of the time and did not like to be shaken awake when gandhi wanted a clarification from him!

In fact,it is quie clear that Nehru and Patel deliberately kept Gandhi and Azad out of the march 3rd meeting as had they been there,the plan would've been defeated.Lohia says that they ahd alreadyd ecided upon their course of action and had deliberately prevented Gandhi from preventing the party from agreeing to it.
The Congess leaders Lohia said, were tired and exhausted at the crucial moment of India's greatest distress.As mentioned earlier,Nehru many years admitted that they were all tired and exhausted old men,who could not contemplate fighting and going to prison once more.Lohia,who clashed several; times with boh Nehru and Patel at the meeting,said that they both attacked Gandhi agressively like "barking dogs" when they thought he would be able to obstruct them.

Gandhi then produced a tactical stroke of genius ,when he said that since the AICC had accepted a partition,it should be left to them and the Muslimm League who had accepted it,after the British and the Viceroy first stepped down to work out the division between themselves without a third party!This was the beauty of his proposal that since this would be an impossibility,partition could be avoided.

(To be contd.)

surinder · Post by **surinder** » 03 Sep 2009 21:45

Guys, what kind of a story is this: A decision of such magnitude as Partition and Gandhi is not informed? He is sitting in a meeting and asking JLN, why was I not informed? What kind of leadership is this? Is the implication that Gandhi is getting an alibi or a fait acompli? What about the possibility that Gandhi is lying, and JLN is part of that lie. It is either dishonest, or it is incompetence of the highest order.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 Sep 2009 22:20

surinder wrote:Guys, what kind of a story is this: A decision of such magnitude as Partition and Gandhi is not informed? He is sitting in a meeting and asking JLN, why was I not informed? What kind of leadership is this? Is the implication that Gandhi is getting an alibi or a fait acompli? What about the possibility that Gandhi is lying, and JLN is part of that lie. It is either dishonest, or it is incompetence of the highest order.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in his biography "India wins Freedom" corroborates this. Gandhiji and he were not informed. The book was banned for quite few years.

I think they wanted to short circuit both these leaders in their anxiety ot transfer power ASAP. May be Lady Mount bat ten might have revealed more about British plans.